A collection of Atari game cartridges were dug up in a New Mexico landfill last year. Now they have brought in more than $100,000 in sales.

The April 2014 dig ended ideas about an urban legend that Atari had thrown out hundreds of games. They included "E.T. The Extraterrestrial." It was introduced more than 30 years ago. That was reported by The Alamogordo Daily News.

A film crew recorded Joe Lewandowski as he dug up the Atari cartridges. In addition to the "E.T. The Extraterrestrial" cartridges, Lewandowski found more than 60 other titles.

Those included Asteroids and Missile Command. It included Warlords and Defender. Star Raiders and Swordquest were also found. Phoenix and Centipede were found too. And Super Breakout was another game that was found.

Atari's E.T. game was based on the Steven Spielberg film. It was released in 1982. But it was released after only 34 days of development. That helped it to become known as the worst video game ever.

It never lived up to its monetary goals. It is thought by many to have added to Atari's end. That was shown in Zak Penn's documentary "Atari: Game Over."

The 881 games sold on eBay brought in close to $108,000. That was what Lewandowski told the Alamogordo City Commission. Buyers came from 45 states and 14 countries.

Twenty-three games also made their way to museums around the world. Those included the Smithsonian in Washington. It also included the Deutsches Film Museum in Frankfurt, Germany.

Lewandowski said there are hundreds more cartridges.

"There are 297 we are still holding in an archive that we will sell. When we decide what to do with them," he said. "But for now, we are just holding them."

The city will get about $65,000 from the sale of the games. About $16,000 will go to the Tularosa Basin Historical Society.

I liked this article because it showed that you should never buy the world's worst game.

ryan-pon

9/08/2015 - 09:03 a.m.

I think there buying it because they think its cool but when they play it they think its not fun so they want there money back so they sell it and who ever buys it the guy will say that the video game is awesome so that they won't have the game anymore.

marks1-fre

9/16/2015 - 02:56 p.m.

I Would never Spend all My Money on Horrible games :\

shaniay-fre

9/17/2015 - 02:58 p.m.

I liked this aricle because it showed you never but the worst video games.

Eric0221-YYCA

11/16/2015 - 09:43 p.m.

I think that the Atari video game had been thought to be the worst video game that people had ever played in their lives because the game doesn't even need to earn a lot of money for selling the game. The Atari game company might have been bought down because it is the worst thing that people had ever seen.